Meeting the Enemy (42 page)

As these fresh troops passed us on the road, they shouted insults at the Germans, and one of them, seeing the German officer at my side, shouted as he passed, ‘Make that bloody bastard Boche carry your pack!’ I made no reply, and reflected that the nearer one is to the battle, the less hate there is. Some of these boy soldiers going up to the front had probably not been in action. I felt a certain strange kinship with my prisoners.

When Hodges finally handed the men over, he was surprised to be given a receipt.

The receipt was for one German officer and fifty-eight other ranks. I noticed that they detached the German officer from the rest, led him off into a building and expertly sorted the other ranks by regiment, penning them like sheep. They were only too ready to lie down on the straw in the cattle pens. For them the war was over.

Privately, the German High Command conceded defeat on 29 September, the day the Allies broke through the Hindenburg Line and a day after the capitulation of Bulgaria, a Central Powers ally of Germany. On 3 October, the High Command handed back executive power to the Reichstag so that politicians rather than the army would be responsible for negotiating peace. Politicians accepted the offer in order to try to re-establish control over collapsing civil order, and to diminish the growing threat from Bolshevik-inspired radicals. A new chancellor was appointed, the moderate Prince Max von Baden, who would oversee the conclusion of peace with the Allies. He would quickly discover that he had been placed in an almost impossible situation, with socialists demanding the abdication of the Kaiser on one hand, and the political right steadfastly refusing to accept such a move on the other. A few days later, Germany signalled to the United States that she was willing to take part in a negotiated peace agreement. The message, decoded by the French, served only to reassure the Allies that Germany was finished and therefore that negotiation was not an option. It was almost certainly this rumour that Sapper Martin had heard.

On 28 October, an attempt by senior naval officers to launch the German High Seas Fleet in a suicidal attack on the Royal Navy was resisted by naval ratings who mutinied. These men linked up with disgruntled and radicalised industrial workers to quickly establish councils to demand immediate peace and political reform. The revolt rapidly spread from the naval port of Kiel across northern Germany. On 7 November, the 45,000-strong garrison in Cologne rose up and formed a revolutionary council while across the country workers’ and soldiers’ councils were formed along the structural lines of Russian Soviets. Two days later, Prince Max von Baden resigned and a socialist, Friedrich Ebert, was handed the reigns of power, and announced that Germany was a republic. Within hours the Kaiser bowed to the inevitable and abdicated both as German Emperor and King of Prussia.

In her journal, Princess Evelyn Blücher vividly described her own feelings in contrast to those of the Germans round about her. The war, on which so much had been gambled, was lost, and the fate of the Kaiser had become little more than an opportunity for a brief moment of relief.

I must confess that I myself feel shocked and surprised at the universal rejoicing manifested at the abdication of the Kaiser. They could not be more jubilant if they had won the war! He may deserve his fate, but it seems very hard and cruel to throw stones at him at such a moment, when he must be enduring untold anguish and sorrow.

I never felt so deeply for the German people as I do now, when I see them bravely and persistently trying to redress the wrongs of the war, for which they were in truth never responsible. The greater part of them were men fighting blindly to guard an ideal, the ‘Heimat’, some patch of mother earth . . . they were told was in danger, and this they went to save.

Amongst the aristocracy, the grief at the breakdown of their country, more than at the personal fall of the Kaiser, is quite heart-rending to see. I have seen some of our friends, strong men, sit down and sob at the news, while others seemed to shrink to half their size and were struck dumb with pain . . .

On that day, 9 November, the verger at St George’s Church in Berlin spotted a visitor entering the Monbijou Gardens. It was none other than Kaiser Wilhelm, accompanied by an adjutant carrying a bag. They passed the chapel and entered the neighbouring museum where Hohenzollern treasures were on public display, among them a scarlet gown worn by the Kaiser in 1907 when Oxford University conferred on him an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law. He remained at the museum for half an hour before he left: ‘No doubt with the objects that His Majesty did not wish to leave behind, safely tucked away in the bag,’ wrote Reverend Williams. ‘Then, as the verger looked on, Kaiser Wilhelm stopped and looked in sadness at his mother’s church for a minute or two, before leaving the garden.’ Although neither the verger nor Williams had any inkling, the Kaiser, a man once so full of self-importance and grandeur, was preparing meekly to slip over the border into exile in Holland. He would never return to Germany.

The next day, Sunday 10 November, Kaiser Wilhelm crossed into Holland. That morning in Berlin, the Reverend Williams was making his way to church to take the first service of the day. There were reports of sporadic fighting in the capital between revolutionaries and the army, but Williams had as yet seen nothing. As he passed through the Monbijou Gardens, there was a sudden exchange of machine-gun and rifle fire between soldiers in the Guards’ barracks on one side of the River Spree and officers firing from rooftops on the other.

‘Bullets crackled through the bushes close beside me. It was all over in a minute or two, but might re-commence at any moment.’ Aware that parishioners for the eleven o’clock service might well walk into the line of fire, Williams positioned himself in front of the large open gates at the entrance to the garden, directing people to go round another way.

I must have looked so unclerical in my grey flannels that a revolutionary sentinel, a young soldier I had noticed with his belt full of hand-grenades, evidently mistook me for a German officer in disguise and immediately reported what he had seen [to fellow revolutionaries].

I had returned to the vestry to robe for the service when the verger appeared, looking frightened. ‘They’ve come!’ he gasped. At the same moment I heard a tramp, tramp, tramp in the church and a sharp word of command. The next moment a revolutionary officer appeared in the doorway. With him were half-a-dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets and a machine gun. They had come to arrest me and had been informed that a number of anti-revolutionary officers were in hiding in the church. I assured the officer that he was mistaken - I was the British chaplain and no German, and could give my word of honour that there were no officers hiding in the church. If he would be good enough to search it, I was at his service.

We went round together and looked in every corner. He then said quite courteously, ‘I accept your word for it, Herr Kaplan, that we have made a mistake and beg you to accept our apologies, but should there be any deception, you will of course be held responsible. I shall leave two of my men on guard here and withdraw the rest. I bid you good-day,’ clicked his heels and saluted. I smiled and held out my hand. He smiled too, grasped it warmly, saluted again and turned on his heel. A nice fellow.

Half-an-hour later we were half-way through the service when, just as we were singing the hymn ‘Peace, perfect peace’, there was a sudden outburst of artillery and machine gun fire from the barracks outside. It did not disturb us but seemed a curious accompaniment to the words we were singing.

The next day, 11 November, the Armistice came into force.

During the last months of the war, thousands of British prisoners were kept working behind the lines in France and Belgium. Moved from place to place, they were dependent on food the Germans scraped together that was never enough to sustain them for any length of time. These men rarely, if ever, received Red Cross parcels and as the Germans retired that autumn they were forcibly marched from pillar to post, exhausted and weak.

With news of the Armistice, the Germans abandoned their captives. Private George Gadsby of the 1/18th London Regiment was with a batch of prisoners near Namur. The Germans initially wanted these men to continue with them to Cologne, but the prisoners refused and eventually the Germans marched off, leaving George and his mates to ‘enjoy the pleasure of watching the defeated German Army retire’.

The wounded were thrown on the top of heavily laden wagons: men were cursing, and all the German soldiers wore strands of red ribbon proclaiming revolution against the Kaiser. Some of them, as they came out of the estaminets drunk, were singing the ‘Marseillaise’. The Germans raided several stores and barges, most of them containing wine and spirits.

Another prisoner who had been captured during the March offensive was Private Walter Humphreys of the 1/15th London Regiment. He was in a poor state, trudging ahead of the retiring Germans. Along with dozens of other prisoners, Humphreys had spent weeks sleeping by the side of the road or on the floors of empty buildings. They were all desperately hungry, too, but still the enemy kept them captive until one afternoon a German officer walked into the farmyard where they were resting and spoke to the men.

‘As the Armistice has been signed, you can do as you like as we have no food for you. You are free. We are going back to Germany.’ And he walked out and left us there. Everybody scrabbled out to make sure they were free. Where the men intended to go when it was nearly dark, I don’t know.

In Germany, news of the Armistice was usually given to prisoners by the camp commandant. After months of poor treatment and frequent abuse, the prisoners were amused at the craven way commandants who had hitherto referred to prisoners as ‘Schweinehunde’ now addressed them respectfully, as Private Jack Rogers witnessed.

The commandant spoke to his interpreter and the first word this little man said was ‘Gentlemen’. You can just imagine the roar that went up when he said that, cheering, shouting, he couldn’t keep us quiet.

At Munster railway station, there had accumulated hundreds of small Red Cross parcels that were supposed to have been delivered to prisoners. They were no good to us but we were still extremely cross and did not want German soldiers to have them. So we had a chat amongst ourselves and said that if the authorities could arrange for all the poor people in the village to come to the station, we prisoners would be there to hand them each a parcel. We knew they’d had very little food and a rough time, so wouldn’t it be a grand gesture before we went? The next day there were queues of people all lined up, waiting, and we all had the privilege of giving a parcel and you ought to have seen them, the looks on their faces.

The best policy for prisoners weakened by poor treatment was to stay where they were until Allied troops could arrange their safe extraction. This did not mean that prisoners remained confined behind barbed wire and, where there were nearby towns and villages, they took the opportunity to look around them. They found a crestfallen population whose citizens would step from the pavement to walk in the gutter, allowing prisoners the right of way.

For prisoners fortunate enough to have worked on the land, news that they were free depended entirely on fellow farmhands. Alf Bastin, captured in October 1914 with the Royal Naval Division, had been made an assistant gardener on a big estate north of Berlin. When a local man brought a newspaper with the headlines announcing that the war was over, Alf immediately packed up work. ‘We had a conversation. He said, “Terrible isn’t it? For years and years we’ve been singing
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles
,” Germany, Germany above all, “and I’ll have to change that now to
Deutschland, Deutschland alles über
”, Germany, Germany, all is over.’

The signs of revolution were everywhere. Prisoners in France and Germany witnessed guards ripping off army insignia, removing shoulder straps and tying red ribbons to their tunics. At Namur, George Gadsby saw German soldiers threatening to throw their sergeant into the canal; officers who tried to maintain discipline were attacked. At Minden camp, the commandant, a symbol of the old regime and a man who had made it his business to swagger, now became congenial and asked politely if the prisoners had any red handkerchiefs. He intended to make a flag that could be flown over the military section of the camp, although ultimately this flag did not save him from being badly beaten up by revolutionaries. At Birkenmoor camp, a satellite of Gustrow camp, the guards returned singing from a meeting with red flags tied to their bayonets. Prisoners were shocked to see the commandant thrown into prison, sergeants and corporals stripped of rank and rifles, and a private named Hoffmann seizing authority. Civilians, caught up in the revolutionary spirit, tore down the barbed wire surrounding the camp. ‘We are free to go wherever we like, and of course we do not miss the chance,’ wrote an anonymous prisoner at the camp.

At first it is not safe to go alone so we have a guide (one of the guards) who carries firearms for his and our protection and if he meets any person not wearing the red in the buttonhole he takes the law into his own hands. After several visits to Kiel and various places, we find it quite safe to go alone . . . the people treat us with every respect and we can obtain plenty of beer and other drinks at their expense.